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Yale Psychiatry Residents Honored with Prestigious Awards and Fellowships During 2010-2011 Term

06/14/2011: An impressive number of Yale Psychiatry Residents received awards and fellowships during the 2010-2011 term.

Tichianaa Armah, MD

APA/SAMHSA Minority FellowshipDr. Armah, a third year Yale Psychiatry resident during the 2010-2011 term, has received an American Psychiatric Association (APA)/ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Minority Fellowship. Dr. Armah has demonstrated a keen awareness of the importance of culture in mental health, an interest in the interrelationship between mental health/illness and transcultural factors, and exercises natural leadership abilities. Utilizing resources from this award, Dr. Armah hopes to bring additional programming to the Department and residency program about mental health care disparities and cultural sensitivity as well as begin research on these topics. She has been an active member of the Psychiatry Residents’ Association, serving as that organization’s president during the 2010–2011 term.

Andres Barkil-Oteo, MD

Group for Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) Fellowship
American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) FellowshipDuring his third-year of residency, Dr. Barkil-Oteo received the prestigious Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) Fellowship. During the fellowship’s two-year experience, Dr. Barkil-Oteo attends semi-annual meetings and works closely with GAP’s Mental Health Services committee on developing an educational curriculum for residents. In addition to committee responsibilities, the Fellows, working as a group, will develop a plenary session to be presented to the general GAP membership at the Fellows’ final meeting. In 2011, Dr. Barkil-Oteo was named an American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) Fellow. The APsaA fellowship provides outstanding early-career psychiatrists with additional knowledge of and exposure to psychoanalysis.

Christopher Hammond, MD

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Outstanding Resident Award
American Psychiatric Association (APA) Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow AwardDr. Christopher Hammond, a PGY3 in the Albert J. Solnit Integrated Training Program during the 2010-2011 term, received the National Institute of Mental Health’s 2011 Outstanding Resident Award and has received the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow Award from the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The integrated Solnit residency was a natural fit for Dr. Hammond considering his significant interests in child neuropsychiatric disorders and addiction medicine. His primary research interest is in further elucidating the roles that stress, gender, environment, and genetics play in brain development of reward and stress-related neurocircuitry, and how these factors contribute to the development of adolescent risk-taking behaviors, SUDs, and impulse control disorders.

Eric Hermes, MD

Joseph L. Haley Award from the U.S. Army Aviation Medical AssociationDr. Hermes, a fourth-year resident during the 2010-2011 term, was an Air Force flight surgeon for seven years prior to joining Yale’s Psychiatry Residency as a PGY2. His article, “Aircraft Type and Other Risk Factors for Spinal Disorders: Data from 19,673 Military Cockpit Aircrew” which resulted from his research at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was selected by the U.S. Army Aviation Medical Association as the best paper published in 2010 in the area of rotary wing medicine. Prior to his research, no one had completed a strong cohort study to look at the risks that exposure to vibration and g-forces in these aircraft have on the spine.

Gretchen Hermes, MD, PhD

Power Day II Resident Award
Daniel X. and Mary Freedman Fellowship in Academic Psychiatry
APA/Pfizer Pharmaceuticals M.D./Ph.D. Psychiatric Research Fellowship
APA/Janssen Resident Psychiatric Research ScholarDr. Hermes, a fourth year resident and Chief Resident on the Clinical Neurosciences Research Unit during the 2010-2011 term, was chosen by Yale’s School of Medicine to receive the 2011 Power Day Resident Award in Psychiatry. The award goes to residents who have modeled the responsible, positive, and constructive use of power. "Perhaps more than any other award, this acknowledgement was the fulfillment of a promise to myself and to the then young woman from my childhood who inspired my interest in psychiatry," remarked Dr. Hermes. "Power Day at YMS was a significant reminder of the corrosiveness of the hidden curriculum but also of the countless opportunities for constructive use of power in our field, for listening to and advocating for patients whose suffering so often escapes easy understanding." She is also the recipient of a 2011 Daniel X. and Mary Freedman Fellowship in Academic Psychiatry, a 2011 APA/Pfizer Pharmaceuticals M.D./Ph.D. Psychiatric Research Fellowship to support post-graduate psychiatry trainees with research experience, and in 2010 was recognized as an APA/Janssen Resident Psychiatric Research Scholar, which provided a fellowship to focus on clinical and health services research. In the coming year, Dr. Hermes will continue as a fellow in the Section of Comparative Medicine and the Department of Psychiatry at Yale to develop a basic and translational program of research at the interface of stress, mental illness and chronic disease.

Pilar Laborde-Lahoz, MD

American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry ScholarLeading geriatric educators and training directors selected Dr. Pilar Lahoz, a fourth-year Yale Psychiatry resident during the 2010-2011 term, as a Geriatric Mental Health Foundation Scholar. The competitive and selective honor includes an opportunity to meet individually with a geriatric psychiatrist mentor and participation in special events. Her research has focused on neuroimaging mood disorders in the geriatric population and following her graduation from the residency program she will remain in the Department to pursue a Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship. She is also focusing on health care disparities in the treatment of patients with dementia. She is authoring a book chapter on dementia with Lewy Bodies and, in collaboration with Dr. Esperanza Diaz and Dr. David Ross, she is preparing a paper on Boundary Management.

Carla Marienfeld, MD

AADPRT/George Ginsberg Fellowship Award
Association for Academic Psychiatry Fellowship and Travel Award
NIMH Research Careers in Global Mental Health Meeting Travel Award
Laughlin AwardCurrently in her fourth-year of Yale’s Psychiatry residency program, Dr. Marienfeld has been selected to receive the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT)/George Ginsberg Fellowship Award. The Award acknowledges the excellence and accomplishments of outstanding residents interested in education and teaching. Additionally, in 2010 Dr. Marienfeld was a funded attendee of NIMH’s Research Careers in Global Mental Health meeting and received a Fellowship and Travel Award from the Association for Academic Psychiatry. During her time at Yale, she has worked with the Department to develop a Global Mental Health program and traveled to China to conduct sessions on psychiatry residency training and participate in the development of a novel psychiatry residency program in that country. She has been an active member of the Psychiatry Residents’ Association and served as president of the organization during her second year. During her final year of residency, she served as program-wide Chief Resident, and at the Department’s 2011 commencement, Dr. Marienfeld received the Laughlin Award.

Mark Niciu, MD

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Outstanding Resident Award
Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry McNeill FellowshipDr. Mark Niciu, in his PGY3 year during the 2010-2011 term, received the 2010 National Institute of Mental Health Outstanding Resident Award. In that capacity, he participated in this year’s NIMH Brain Camp III, which brought together outstanding psychiatry residents with some of the most distinguished and thoughtful neuroscientists in the country. Dr. Niciu’s research interests are in co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders, in particular co-morbid depression and alcoholism. He is currently writing a protocol to administer ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic, and, based on data originating at Yale, a rapidly-acting antidepressant, to subjects with co-occurring depression and alcoholism. The Yale Department of Psychiatry McNeill Fellowship permitted Dr. Niciu to gain hands-on experience working with healthy subjects in a supervised setting, which will be invaluable in his future research.

Kalyani Subramanyam, MD

International Medical Graduate Fellowship (AADPRT)
Laughlin Award
Seymour L. Lustman Resident Research Award (Honorable Mention)Dr. Subramanyam, in her fourth-year of residency, has been awarded an American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT) International Medical Graduate Fellowship. The fellowship is designed to promote the professional growth of exceptional IMG residents and fellows and facilitate their successful development as leaders in American Psychiatry. Prior to joining our residency program, she had completed psychiatry residency training at the prestigious National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore, India. As a junior resident, she was recognized with the Ira Levine Award, which is Yale Psychiatry’s highest clinical honor for PGY2 residents. And in 2011, Dr. Subramanyam received the Laughlin Award and the honorable mention Seymour L. Lustman Resident Research Award.

Toral Surti, MD, PhD

Society of Biological Psychiatry Travel FellowshipIn May, 2010, Dr. Toral Surti was awarded a Society of Biological Psychiatry Travel Fellowship to attend the Society’s Annual Meeting and participate in a special ceremony held in honor of the Fellows. The award allows promising psychiatry trainees to participate in professional meetings, where new information is exchanged and contacts are made, which can have a critical impact on the career of a developing clinician-scientist. In her PGY4 year she served as Chief Resident for the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit at the Connecticut Mental Health Center and was a co-leader of the PGY1 Roundtable, a monthly discussion group for psychiatry interns. Her research in schizophrenia has resulted in a publication and national and international presentations.

Amelia Villagomez, MD

APA/SAMHSA Minority FellowshipDr. Villagomez, a fourth-year Yale Psychiatry resident during the 2010-2011 term, has received an American Psychiatric Association (APA)/ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Minority Fellowship. Dr. Villagomez’s particular interests are transcultural psychiatry and specifically the interface between psychiatry and spirituality. She is interested in adolescent and child mental health and will be starting a Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in July 2011 at Children's Hospital Boston. Over the next year, Dr. Villagomez will utilize grant funding to learn how to implement mindfulness skills training in school classrooms.

Ke Xu, MD, PhD

APA/Merck & Co., Inc. Early Academic Career Research Award
Seymour L. Lustman Resident Research Award (First Place)Dr. Ke Xu, a current fourth-year resident, has been awarded the American Psychiatric Association (APA)/Merck & Co., Inc. Early Academic Career Research Award. The award supports the research of a junior faculty member with an interest in schizophrenia research and recognizes her technically and conceptually innovative project, “The Identification of Susceptibility Genes for Schizophrenia: Whole Exome Sequencing for Ketamine Associated Psychosis.” Dr. Xu had completed residency and was a faculty member in China prior to joining our residency. She received the Department’s highest resident research award in 2011, presenting her first place project at the Seymour L. Lustman Resident Research Award Grand Rounds session, and will continue in Yale’s Department of Psychiatry as an Assistant Professor.